First off, thanks to everyone here, especially JohnT, that helped me through the process.
My one weekend project took a month. I learned alot and am dang, dang glad that phase is over. When my whole pool area project is done later this summer I'll post photos of the process, but I thought I'd go ahead and do an early report. The sun doesn't hit the panels until maybe 9ish due to trees and by 3 they go into the shadow of a dormer that is above them. All this shade is why I put them in to begin with even though I had less than ideal circumstances. I have 648 sf of pool and put in (3) 4x12 Aquatherm panels on a east facing deck roof that is probably around a 2:12 pitch that slopes towards the east. This amounts to 22% coverage which is much less than the vendors recommend.
The panels have been in for about a week. It's been too cloudy to really do much with them. Lots of rain, and unusually cool here in central AL. Wed was supposed to be more of the same. Tues night the water temp was 75°. I guess Wed morning it would have been 73° or 74°. My wife turned the panels on around 10am and by 12 the water was 79°. The day heated up to upper 80's and it was partly sunny from about 10am until dark. We had maybe 30% clouds. By the end of the day the water was 84°. We had a 10° temp gain on a day with some clouds!!!! These things work.
My one weekend project took a month. I learned alot and am dang, dang glad that phase is over. When my whole pool area project is done later this summer I'll post photos of the process, but I thought I'd go ahead and do an early report. The sun doesn't hit the panels until maybe 9ish due to trees and by 3 they go into the shadow of a dormer that is above them. All this shade is why I put them in to begin with even though I had less than ideal circumstances. I have 648 sf of pool and put in (3) 4x12 Aquatherm panels on a east facing deck roof that is probably around a 2:12 pitch that slopes towards the east. This amounts to 22% coverage which is much less than the vendors recommend.
The panels have been in for about a week. It's been too cloudy to really do much with them. Lots of rain, and unusually cool here in central AL. Wed was supposed to be more of the same. Tues night the water temp was 75°. I guess Wed morning it would have been 73° or 74°. My wife turned the panels on around 10am and by 12 the water was 79°. The day heated up to upper 80's and it was partly sunny from about 10am until dark. We had maybe 30% clouds. By the end of the day the water was 84°. We had a 10° temp gain on a day with some clouds!!!! These things work.
Glad you are seeing good results. I'm afraid a lot of people are scared off from a solar system by the recommendations for large panel arrays. The smaller systems aren't the equivalent of a gas heater or heat pump, but they will give you many more days of comfortable swimming per season, and they do it at a very reasonable cost. I'm currently running about 10 degrees warmer than my neighbor's unheated pool, and I've shut my panels off for some of the time to keep from getting the water too warm.
Even Lafayette gets lake effect weather. The real dividing line in Indiana is around I-70 for real winter. Rare to have a real winter south of it, common north of it.
